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www.independentweekly.com.au
The Independent Weekly
14
February 26 - March 4, 2010 spectrum
Film, in offering a common
framework of understanding
for filmmakers and viewers,
has a role in nation making.
Baz Luhrmann s Australia is
a key example, due in large part
to its title, but also through its
promotion (as a film and together
with tourism campaigns), through
its mythologising of Australian
history and through its allusions
to Australian literature, film,
geography and people -- whether
accurate or not.
Australia received mixed
reviews here and abroad.
Many Australian commentators
took issue with its historical
inaccuracies (with no credited
historical advisors on the film,
this is a salient objection);
Germaine Greer called it a
"fraudulent and misleading
fantasy".
However, the film also had its
supporters, with Marcia Langton
praising it for "giving Australians
a new past".
The year in which Australia
premiered, 2008, was a time of
symbolic change for this country.
It was the year of the National
Apology, which features in the
film s closing.
The election of Kevin Rudd was
supposed to represent a shift in
how Australia thinks about its own
history; no more complaining of
"black armband" histories and no
more politicians calling the child
removal policies "benign".
So, what did Australia give us?
As Luhrmann has so often stated,
Australia is an epic, an ambiguous
term which, apart from signalling
its projected box office sales, offers
little indication of what the film is
about.
In case you haven t seen it,
Australia is set in the Northern
Territory during the late 1930s and
early 1940s.
The male lead is the very
"Australian" Drover (Hugh
Jackman), known mythically by no
other name. Alongside him is Lady
Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman),
a "genuine aristocrat" who has
sailed to Australia from England to
discover her husband has died and
her station manager, Neil Fletcher,
is probably stealing her cattle for
the villainous King Carney.
And, of course, there is Nullah,
the Aboriginal boy who introduces
the film and narrates throughout.
Shortly after Sarah arrives,
Nullah s mother dies and he is
effectively left an orphan. After
Nullah dubs Sarah "the Rainbow
Serpent" and tells her she will heal
the land, Sarah decides to adopt
him.
Then there is the adventurous
drove across the Kuramen desert
(which does not exist) and the
bombing of Darwin. As Luhrmann
said, epic.
During the drove, a romance
develops between Sarah and
Drover which appears to fulfil
Nullah s prophecy. When the two
characters kiss, rain falls on the
drought-stricken Darwin. When
they consummate their relation-
ship, monsoonal storms appear,
the land becomes rejuvenated,
birds fly and rivers flow. But Sarah
will not only heal the land, she will
own it.
The film also shows Fletcher and
Sarah arguing over their rights to
Sarah s property.
Fletcher claims that because
his family "worked the land",
invoking the squatters position
in 19th-century Australia, he has
right of ownership; Sarah claims
she has the deeds.
Between Sarah s status as
Rainbow Serpent and her apparent
superiority over Fletcher s land
claims, a settler discourse is cre-
ated that displaces any notion of
dispossession from the Indigenous
people.
If any of this is sounding
uncannily familiar, it s because
it happened before -- well, sort
of. Charles Chauvel s 1955 film,
Jedda, follows a similar storyline:
orphaned Aboriginal child,
non-Indigenous childless woman
(also called Sarah), a faraway
homestead and the policy of
assimilation (even Drover s dog is
called Jedda!).
It s amazing that despite the
five decades that have elapsed
between these two films,
Luhrmann still chose to represent
the Stolen Generations by having
an orphaned Aboriginal child
raised by a well-intentioned,
non-Indigenous woman. The
Australian Human Rights and
Equal Opportunity Commission
(HREOC) refers to Bringing Them
Home as the "Stolen Children
Report", not the "orphaned
children" report.
When we, as a country, make a
film about our history -- especially
when we call it Australia and
bookend it with reference to
the Stolen Generations and the
National Apology -- we have a
responsibility to the events and
people it represents, and for the
memories it will create.
Film is a powerful arbiter of
social memory. It also has an
emotional resonance and it is one
of the ways we can connect to, and
understand, our history.
In the 20th century, Indigenous
children were removed from
their families under the guise of
"protection". In Australia, Nullah,
the child "stolen", is an orphan
and the dispossession of land is
unproblematic.
In 2010, the Northern Territory
intervention has been described
as "for the children", despite
evidence suggesting the interven-
tion has not worked "for the
children". Meanwhile, the Racial
Discrimination Act has been
suspended, welfare payments have
been quarantined and Indigenous
Australians are being forced to
hand back their land.
How we remember our history is
important, because "Sorry" means
it won t happen again.
Carolyn Lake is an arts student
at Flinders University. This article
is an extract from an extended piece
chosen from an international field
of submissions for the inaugural
edition of Film Matters, the world s
first undergraduate peer-reviewed
film journal.
Movies making myths
The rewriting of our
nation's history in
Baz Luhrmann's film
Australia is cause
for concern, writes
Carolyn Lake.
Film is a powerful arbiter of social memory.
It also has an emotional resonance and it is one
of the ways we can connect to, and understand,
our history.
Left: Australia stars Hugh Jackman and
Nicole Kidman on set. Top: Director
Baz Luhrmann. Middle: Brandon
Walters who starred as Nullah. Bottom:
Jackman and Kidman at the film s
Australian premiere.
Photo: Janie Barrett